ImGod

My take on MM's comment is the prevailing attitude from the "cult" of parenthood that raising children is the most noble of all endeavors. There is an underlying need of the parenthood crowd to validate their choice for having children by defining the advancement of or species as “having and teaching children”. This is summarized in the work/don’t work debate many of us have had publicly or privately by the “raising of future generations” I hear so often. Noble by all means, but nobler than not having children and choosing a path that betters humans in other ways?

Before I joined parenthood myself, I received much unwanted pressure from people about when we were having children or why we didn’t already have children. It came from family members, friends, acquaintances, and virtual strangers. We resisted the temptation to have children until we were ready for them. Now that I have children myself, I make a mental effort to resist urging others to do also for several reasons.

1) It’s none of my business.
2) They may be trying and can’t.
3) It’s their choice not mine.

His comment is a reminder that those of us with children that we should not expect any additional praise for simply making a decision someone else chose not to make. Expect is the key word in that sentence. Everyone looks for praise for their accomplishments, but looking outside for praise in personal decisions more than likely leaves one with an unappreciated feeling. I understand that society ranks individuals on the perceived importance of their personal or professional choices. It’s unfortunate if parents feel they are ranked too low, but that does not necessarily give them the grounds to request more respect; only the grounds to argue that humans place too much emphasis on “ranking” society.

The appreciation I get for my choice to have children, is from the satisfaction of teaching them and from enjoying my time with them. Very similar in fact to other hobbies I enjoy, so I think MM’s analogy is appropriate. The feeling of appreciation and accomplishment for a job well done should always come from within. Anything else is icing on the cake.

So, in summary, I can see MM’s point; neither he nor society owes me anything for my choice to have children. The obligation to produce effective and productive adults from that decision falls on me, and me alone. Any satisfaction or frustration that I can get from that decision is really no different than any other “hobby” or profession that I choose to follow.

Oresta

All of our three children went to public schools. With three degrees and experience in teaching in both public schools and university graduate courses, I think I am well qualified to home school. But I never did. This is what my kids experienced/learned in public schools that I could never have given them in home schooling:

-The opportunity to sing in a superb mixed chorus
-To play on a basketball team
-To study biology and chemistry in a fully equipped lab under a gifted teacher
-To learn math as a function rather than a computation, that led them to a math literacy I could never have given them
-To have an art teacher who touched and drew out a gift of one daughter none of us could have seen
-To be in plays and musical productions under experienced directors
-To learn both Christmas Carols and Chanacha songs in 7th grade music class, which held them in good stead when they and their classmates went caroling from our house, a year when Chanacha overlapped with Christmas. Classmates at our house that night were Christian, Jew, Islamic and, um, whatever.
-To be, at times, in a racial minority and learn it had no bearing on what was going on in class or among their friendship groups
-Above all, in this wonderful stew of race and religion, they learned, in class discussion, that the views they learned at home weren't everyone else's; that they were in the minority on both politics and religion; that they would have toeither research and reincorporate those beliefs as authentically their own or reject them for another belief system.

<aside>
[quote]Church people call it "missionary dating" when a believer dates an unbeliever, thinking they can "save" their partner. But according to The Dallas Morning News, an increasing number of female believers have graduated from "missionary dating" to "missionary cohabiting."[/quote}
I've waited three pages for someone to take on that "missionary cohabiting" straight line, but no one has. Far be it from me to do so. Please continue.</aside>

[ September 06, 2002: Message edited by: Oresta ]</p>

2tadpoles

I'm glad that your children had such good experiences, but I wonder why you feel you couldn't have provided any of this by home schooling?

I know several homeschooled kids who are part of a chorus, although my own have shown no interest in singing as of yet. My children have the opportunity to play in team sports if they desire, and they have. Team sports are not only found in schools.

Homeschooled teens have the option of taking biology and other science courses at community colleges, and are therefore learning in fully equipped labs and are also earning college credits. There are art and drama classes geared towards homeschooled kids....one must remember that MANY homeschooled kids are children of parents who are/were teachers. Many of these professionals offer their services to us. Those classes can also be taken at community colleges when kids are older.

Learning math as a function (of life) is one of the benefits of homeschooling. Lots of math teachers teach strictly out of books, and hands-on or real-life experiences with math are often ignored.

I think you might be under the impression that homeschooled kids spend all their time at home. My kids get to mix with people of other races, beliefs, AND ages. They aren't limited to agemates. That is just as important. My children are just as likely to go out and "play" with the 76-yr-old man next door than with kids their own age. They enjoy the company of teens and preschoolers, agemates and adults. That isn't something you will often find in school.

babelfish

Yes, I guess I can see where you're coming from. It's just that something in me recoils from tagging the act of nurturing human beings as a "hobby." Or thinking that a few years (okay, decades) ago, I was merely somebody's "hobby."

Amos

Are we not our mothers' pride and joy and is our mother not the cornerstone of all our ambitions and achievements? Remember how I once called the priest the idiot who speaks from the pulpit, so now, in his turn, the male or human identity is the idiot who thinks he is responsible for his own achievements while he forgets that it is the woman that pulls the strings from behind the scene . . . be this the woman he comes to for consultation in his own mind or the woman he comes home to at night.

2tadpoles

Somehow, I missed this post earlier.

Most homeschooling families do not have both parents working outside the home. So the family members will usually all be together during whatever hours the wage-earner is not at work. My family is not the norm.

My own family is, like you said, not "all together" much more than it was when we both worked full time during the day. To use a friend's family as an example: They both work full time and their kids go to private school. They have five nights per week together as a family, plus weekends.

My husband and I (and the kids) have 3 nights per week together, and the daytime portion of Saturday and Sunday together. So yes, my friend's family seems to have more time together as a whole. However, much of their time together is sucked up by homework. On the first day of school, their fifth grader had homework in every subject, plus a quiz the next day. We have no such drain on us in our house, since we do our work as we learn; we don't listen to lecture and then do work later.

I also don't have to ask permission or notify anyone if I want to take my kids to the beach on a Wednesday when it's nice out. If my husband happens to get a day off for some odd reason, my kids don't have to miss out on that good fortune. If we feel like going to visit grandma for two weeks in the middle of Febrary, we can. We can take time off and have "family" time whenever we feel like it.

I might add that I only work out of financial necessity, not because I want to be employed. The first year or so that we homeschooled, I was not employed. I only plan on keeping this job until my husband gets out of the Navy in 18 months, after which time we will be able to manage on what he earns as a civilian. I don't particularly enjoy being away four nights per week, but I'm not willing to use the local school as a free daycare service.